Self Preservation and Irreversible Decline [was: Electronic Freedom Foundation selective in support of freedom]

[Steve Kinney]

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On 01/17/2016 03:51 PM, juan wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Jan 2016 12:05:34 +0000 Zenaan Harkness
> <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
> 
>> This highlights for me personally how programmed I am in my
>> think, and how useful it is to be perpetually reminded of at
>> least one or two of the limitations of said think. But shit,
>> it's embarrassing how programmed I am...
> 
> Well, once you realize you are programmed, then you are not
> programmed anymore =P

I so VERY much wish that was true!  I have worked on
'deprogramming' myself since age 17 or 18, with some degree of
success - but only in proportion to the amount of effort expended
X the amount of time spent pushing, pushing, pushing.  Have I
moved off 'square one' yet?  I think so, but sometimes I have my
doubts.

Early on I arrived at the conclusion that "Knowing better changes
nothing."  Identifying a self defeating mental complex only
indicates a need to start programming its replacements.  Without
effective tools in hand, "knowing better" only leads to denial and
rationalization:  The higher one's verbal IQ and the broader one's
general information, the faster and better defensive self
deception works.

The Zen aphorism "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water;
after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water" may apply here.  Even
a fundamental, revolutionary change in perceived personal identity
does not magically flush out a lifetime of beliefs, habits, and
information belonging to some hypothetical "old self" that has
supposedly been overturned.  Enlightenment does not stop the flow
of incoming propaganda, nor does it cancel the established
relationships and dependencies with the external world that define
a person as a social and economic entity.  That thunderous,
world-shattering AHA! moment, if it comes, will at best present a
series of new and more difficult mountains to climb.

>> I sure f-ing hope -one- of these days I can give "the Juan 
>> clarification" (at least to myself/ in my head) before you
>> yourself do so.
> 
> I don't want to claim more credit than I deserve, which is 
> basically...none.
> 
> Wow. (Still there's no new thought under the Sun, but how hard
> is it to shake one's programming.)

Bob Wilson got on that particular bus sometime in the 1960s.  By
the 1980s spreading the gospel of self-deprogramming became his
major mission in life.  I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the
cognitive tools presented here:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/downloads/04%20Prometheus%20Rising
.pdf

Yesterday someone asked me for a "Cliff Notes" version of Wilson's
video Maybe Logic, itself a condensed / introductory gloss of his
written works on self deprogramming.  I had to advise him that
"Cliff Notes" approaches to political and existential problems can
only make them worse...

>>>> http://kickass-cookies.co.uk/the-ascendance-of-sociopaths-in-u-
s-governance/

I
>>>> 
like to define politics as the process flow of power
relationships in a society.  In this context, blaming systemic
political failures on broken State institutions or malicious
actors wielding State power can not produce practical solutions.
These problems arise mutually; neither can do its nefarious work
without the other, so repairing either allows the other to undo
the repair job - and creates an institutional memory to immunizing
the State against repetition of those repairs.

:o/








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